


The Nick of Time

by CSIGurlie07



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Based off a tumblr comic, F/F, Not Really Character Death, Supercorp lives, Trigger Warning: Drowning, check out the comic before reading if you are unsure, descriptions of bomb aftermath, nothing is too graphic but may be sensitive for some readers, seriously protect yourselves if you need to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-05 21:45:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11586822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CSIGurlie07/pseuds/CSIGurlie07
Summary: In which Kara is too late to save Lena. Not a character death, but it comes too, too close. Please read the tags for warnings. Inspired by the tumblr comic "The Nick of Time" by foleypdx.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this webcomic: <https://foleypdx.tumblr.com/post/163084037522/the-nick-of-time>
> 
> This tag is posted with the approval of the the original comic artist. Please give their page a look and some love. Their art is amazing and they capture Supercorp so well.

She’s not going to make it. Kara knows from the slant of the sun across the water that she’s too late. She pulls up sharply, slowing until wind won’t tear her words away when she calls Lena on her cell.

Lena answers on on the second ring.

“Kara!” Her voice is bright and warm and breathless in a way that makes Kara’s heart beat faster. “I’m sorry I’m late. A meeting ran late and then traffic was so horrible I just got out and walked--”

“It’s okay!” Kara cuts in with a laugh on her lips. “I haven’t even made landfall yet.”

Lena heaves a sigh of relief. “Oh, good. Well, not _good--”_

Behind Lena’s voice Kara hears children shrieking with laughter, and the hum of a dozen conversations that fade in and out as Lena continues to walk. “Where are you?" Kara asks. "Need a lift?”

“I'm almost to the restaurant," Lena declines smoothly. "I took a shortcut through the park. I'll call ahead and have them hold the reservation. Meet you there?”

“You got it!” Kara beams as the call disconnects, taking the sounds of children laughing with it. Kara spreads her arms and soars, reveling in the sun's warmth. It’s a good day for a visit to the park. Maybe after lunch she can convince Lena to get ice cream with her and watch people enjoying the day.

Just a few minutes later, the commlink in her ear beeps. Kara swallows a groan, slowing to float lazily on her back as she answers.

“Alex, is there any way this could wait two hours?”

Alex grunts at the non-greeting. “The Crixoran escaped containment,” her sister tells her. “We could really use your---”

Suddenly, an alarm wails. Kara recognizes the sounds of the control room behind Alex. J'onn barks in the background, calm, but urgent. Multiple voices talk at Alex simultaneously.

“Alex, what’s going on?” Kara asks, flipping right way up as alarm creeps up her spine.

Alex curses, demanding an update. Vasquez rapidly responds, her words lost in the growing din. “We’re getting reports of an explosion in Monument Park.”

Kara’s stomach drops out from under her. “Lena…”

“What?” Alex demands over the noise.

Fighting muscles locked tight with tension, Kara lurches into motion, aiming for National City. "Lena took a shortcut through the park!”

Alex’s jagged breath scrapes against Kara’s ears. A fresh burst of chaos sounds over the commlink, and Kara hears the roar of the Crixoran, answered by a sharp retort of answering gunfire.

“Go,” comes the order. “We'll handle the Crixoran.”

* * *

Lena pauses next to the broad pool of the wishing fountain to scroll through her phone for the restaurant’s number. The breeze catches the water spraying from the top vents of the obelisk in the fountains center, misting fine droplets against her cheeks. She doesn’t feel the explosion.

One moment she’s standing beside the fountain, and the next she stares at the deep layer of coins lining the bottom of the pool. Lena gasps when her brain belatedly catches up to what she’s seeing, and panics when water fills her nose instead of air. She twists and claws for the surface, coughing and spluttering for air as she struggles to her feet.

Water clouds her vision-- blurry forms rush past, but even as she continues to blink the water from her eyes the world remains indistinct, hazy with smoke. Dust clings to Lena's skin, turning her hands and arms a sickly gray. She thinks she hears screaming, but it sounds muddled, like she’s still underwater. A quick press of her fingertips brings them away from her ears tinged pink with watery blood.

She coughs again, on the verge of retching to clear the remaining water from her lungs. Shakily, she heads for the edge of the fountain. The water reaches past Lena’s knees, pulling against on her legs. Coins shift under her feet, bringing her to her knees. She flounders, barely able to keep her chin above the waterline.

Lena feels the obelisk fall more than she hears it. Water swells around her as the fractured base slides into the pool, and she has less than a heartbeat to turn before it hits her. Pain in her head and shoulder blanches her vision, and the heavy weight of the obelisk drives precious breath from her lungs as it plunges her back underwater. It presses against her ribs and chest, pinning her to the bottom of the fountain.

She pushes frantically against the monument. Her palms slip, sliding right off the smooth marble. She finds an edge, but not the strength she needs to tilt it off her. Lena's panic rises as the burn in her lungs grows sharper. She reaches for the surface instead, searching for something, anything to grab onto. Her fingers find nothing but warm summer air-- air that might as well be miles away.

When the first of the water spills into her lungs, Lena knows that she is going to die.

* * *

Kara touches down into a world of chaos. Blood and smoke cloy at her nostrils, underpinned by the distinct, unforgettable stench of charred flesh. Kara carefully scans the faces running past her, then those crouched to help those who had fallen. And then, finally, to the bodies that have yet to rise.

_Lena, Lena, Lena, Lena…_

Kara casts her senses out, listening for the familiar pattern of Lena’s heartbeat, but there are dozens of heartbeats pounding against her ears, all racing, all frantic, none of them Lena.

_Lena, Lena, Lena, Lena…_

She keys her comms. “Alex!”

“I'm here,” her sister tells her. Her voice is tight, as though in pain, and behind her voice Kara hears Vasquez redirecting backup to the lower levels, after the Crixoran.

“It’s bad, Alex,” Kara says.

“Do you have Lena?”

_Lena, Lena, Lena, Lena…_

“No.” Kara’s heart lurches. “No, I don’t see her.”

Part of her wants to believe Lena made it out of the park, and is waiting for her at the restaurant. But Kara heard the children playing through the phone, and the explosion came too soon after their call for Lena to have gotten far. Even if she’d made it out, she would have turned back to help. Kara would have seen her by now.

Kara scans the park again, and then she sees it: a flash of pale skin skimming the surface of the wishing pool.

“LENA!”

Kara speeds to the pool in a blink. She sees the obelisk, the way it’s pinned Lena to the bottom, but what sticks in her mind is the way her arms don’t reach, but float limp in the water. Kara hooks shaking hands under the edge of the obelisk and hoists it up. Lena bobs lifelessly as Kara tosses the monument aside. She drops to her knees in the water, scooping Lena into her arms and pulling her head above the water.

“Lena! No, No!” Kara begs, cupping Lena’s cheek. “Please, come on, Lena. Come on!”

“Kara?” Alex calls for her through the comms, but her voice sounds far away, clouded by Kara’s panic.

_Lena, Lena, Lena, Lena…_

Kara’s hands shake, her heart pounding in her ears. Kara clutches Lena tight against her chest, then remembers the CPR Alex taught her. She remembers the way her compressions caved in the chest of the dummy she’d practiced on, and freezes. She can’t breathe past the hard lump clogging her throat. _Please, not her._ Not Lena.

Then Lena lurches, water gushing from her nose and mouth in a muffled choke that becomes a wracking cough to expel the water from her lungs. A wordless cry pulls from Kara’s throat, her eyes pricking with tears. She props Lena further upright, clearing her airway as best she can while keeping Lena’s chin above water. She holds Lena close, riding out the spasms until Lena finally slumps against her. Now Kara can hear the grind of broken ribs, sees the blood trailing from Lena’s ears. But the flutter of Lena’s heart keeps beating. She’s alive.

_Lena._

“Kara?” Alex pants in her ear. The sounds of fighting persist, but Kara can barely hear over the thud of Lena's rapid heartbeat. “Kara, talk to me! Is she--?”

“I've got her, Alex.” Kara gathers her feet under her, and rises from the water, cradling Lena against her chest. She staggers under the weight of what almost happened, a chasm cracking open in her chest. Lena's eyelids flutter, struggling to focus waterlogged eyes.

_“Kara…”_

“You’re okay,” Kara murmurs. Lena may not hear her, but if she says it, maybe Kara can start to believe it herself. “I'm right here. You're going to be okay, Lena.”

Lena loses her brief battle for consciousness, her head lolling over Kara’s arm. Around them, the sounds of chaos come back into focus. People cry out for help, calling to Supergirl, begging. The smell of blood and smoke crowds Kara’s senses. The park, previously filled with the sounds of laughter bright enough to carry over a phone call, is a place of death.

Anger surges inside of Kara, burning brighter with every ragged breath Lena takes. The wail of sirens grows louder as emergency vehicles speed towards the park; they’re too late. _She_ is too late. Lena survived, barely, but so many others weren't so lucky. So many people whose families won’t have a miracle like Kara’s.

Kara clenches her eyes shut, banishing the sight of the ravaged park around her. The amphitheater steps where she and so many others liked to take their lunches is gone, reduced to a pile of rubble. Too-small bodies dot the ravaged field to her right-- the source of the laughter she'd heard over the phone, now silent. This isn't a statement. It isn't a warning. Whoever did this wanted a death toll, and they got it. Because Kara hadn’t been there.

She stands there with Lena limp in her arms, as rage surges deep in her chest. When Kara opens her eyes, the skin around them is hot, her vision warping with scathing energy just itching to find a target.

“Alex.” Her voice grates against her throat, rough and jagged. “Tell me who's responsible for this. Now.”

A long silence stretches over the comms. “We don't know,” Alex says. “There was no intel, no chatter. We had no idea this was coming.” Alex takes another deep breath. “How is she?”

Kara’s breath catches in her chest, and suddenly all she can hear is the shallow, crackling sound of Lena’s labored breathing. Kara’s vision cools, clearing rapidly as Lena’s form comes back into focus. “She-- she needs help.”

“Fly her to the hospital as soon as you can,” Alex instructs. Kara wonders how much she heard over the comms, how much of Kara’s panic and the sounds of water splashing carried over the connection. How much she’d deduced for herself. "Get her to a hospital, and as soon as the doctors have her, we need you to get back out there. The city is going to need Supergirl today.”

Kara lifts into the air with Lena cradled softly in her arms. She swallows against the protests that bubble up at the idea of leaving Lena alone, and breathes past the lump of helplessness lodged deep in her throat. She flies as quickly as she dares, and as the hospital appears in the distance, Kara embraces the ember of dark fury still burning in her chest. She lets it take root, and vows that if she finds whoever did this-- _when_ she finds them... she will make them pay.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The comic artist, [foleypdx](https://foleypdx.tumblr.com), did a follow-up panel to their wonderful "The Nick of Time" panel, titled ["There When You Need Me"](https://foleypdx.tumblr.com/post/163242150497/there-when-you-need-me-kept-thinking-about-this). I couldn't NOT do a companion for it. I love me some whump and TLC, and foleypdx does it so well. 
> 
> Again, please click through and look at foleypdx's amazing art. I cannot express how much these visuals inspire amazing shippy ideas and feels. You don't know what you're missing.
> 
>  
> 
> * * *
> 
>  

Kara hates hospitals at night.

It’s different during the day, when visitors and doctors fill the corridors and the sounds of laughter, sobbing, arguing all bring life to the otherwise clinical halls. It’s night time when the veil seems to part-- the fluorescent lights shine just as brightly, but the patients’ rooms glow only faintly. Nurses speak softly amongst themselves, the white coats of doctors few and far between. It’s night time when Kara feels a patient could slip away, and one might never notice. It’s night time when hospitals remind her of the Phantom Zone, of the hushed quiet that presses in on her, when the universe hangs in a space between, neither living nor dead, until the morning comes.

The small paper note in her hand tethers her to the physical world. It draws her down the long neutral corridor to the Intensive Care Unit and without it, Kara feels like she might levitate off the tiled floor and float away. All the note says is “Room 800.” It says nothing of the other information Jess gave her, like Lena’s broken ribs or perforated eardrums, her concussion, or the fluid that’s lingering in Lena's lungs even after suctioning. Only the room number, and Jess’ promise that Kara would be allowed to visit outside normal visiting hours. A perk, Jess told her, of Lena’s considerable donations.

A pair of locked doors greets Kara when she finds the ICU. She stares at them in consternation for long moments until she notices the call button next to a small speaker on one side. She presses it lightly, fully aware that her unsettled nerves and overworked muscles could crush it to pieces if she were careless. A tinny voice answers.

“Visiting hours are from--”

“My name is Kara Danvers,” Kara cuts in, not unkindly. Just tired, and aware that Lena is beyond those doors, alone. “I’m here to see Lena Luthor.”

There’s a pause, and then the answering buzz of the electronic lock opening. The doors swing open, and Kara proceeds into the unit. Here there’s more noise, ventilators and monitors and pumps and more nurses to care for fewer patients, but the veil is still thinner. Here life is more tenuous. As though to prove her point, an alarm sounds deep in the unit, signaling the loss of vitals. The beeping hammers against Kara's eardrums, and she reaches up to adjust her glasses-- only to remember she'd left them on the counter at home in her rush to get to the hospital. She inhales, falling back on the mental focus she needs to tune the machines out. A placard set on the wall points her down the opposite corridor, past the fork at the nurses’ station.

The charge nurse meets her eye, offering a warm smile. “You can go in, Miss Danvers,” he tells her. His eyes are tired, but gentle. “I’m sure she’ll appreciate the company.”

Kara swallows around the painful lump in her throat. “Thank you.”

She follows the sound of Lena’s heartbeat, distinct among the other fluttering rhythms lining the halls. She stops just inside the door, eyes glued to the small figure lying prone on the bed. She looks small and paper thin against the bedsheets. Scrapes and bruises contrast vividly against her pale skin, including a narrow line of stitches marching along her hairline. A large window takes up most of the opposite wall, painting Lena with moonlight.

_“Oh, Lena…”_

Suddenly, Kara feels the hollow pit in her chest crack open. It threatens to swallow her whole, as it had Krypton and her parents, her friends and billions more she’ll never have a chance to meet. Lena almost joined them yesterday. It had come too close.

Kara sits in the chair left at the side of the bed. The only sound is the rasp of Lena’s breathing, and the steady hiss of oxygen issuing from the canula hooked under her nose. Taking a deep breath, Kara feels the last of her control shred as she exhales. The burn in her eyes resolve into heavy tears that pool on her lashes and drop free. Kara can’t blink, unwilling to tear her gaze from Lena for even a second. She reaches for Lena’s hand, only to pull back at the last second, before their fingers touch. Instead she worries her own hands, wringing them awkwardly in front of her.

“I’m so sorry,” Kara whispers. Lena sleeps on, her breaths slow and rasping. “What kind of hero can’t save the woman she loves?” Kara stares at the thin cotton blanket under her hands, the threads blurring as tears continue to come. “I made you a promise.”

_You don’t have to be afraid..._ _I will always protect you. I promise._

“I should have _been_ there!”

Cool fingers grasp Kara’s hand, squeezing lightly. Lena gazes at her when Kara’s gaze lifts, and in Lena’s eyes Kara finds such warmth, such tender adoration that a sob bursts from her chest before she can contain it. “I’m so sorry, Lena.”

Lena smiles, slow and tired, before tugging Kara towards her. Kara comes, awkwardly working one arm under Lena’s shoulders as Lena wraps a long arm around Kara’s neck, fitting themselves into a delicate one-armed embrace. Tears roll off Kara’s nose, getting lost somewhere in the tangles of Lena’s hair. “I’m so sorry,” she repeats. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“You’re here now,” Lena murmurs, her voice hoarse and breathless. Kara can hear the crackle in her chest under each breath, water snapping with each inhalation. Her other arm braces ribs strained by the embrace. “That’s all that matters to me.”

The arm around Kara’s neck soon trembles with exertion. Loathe to break the connection, Kara holds the embrace a second longer before moving to pull away. She doesn’t get far before Lena’s arm tightens around her. She hears Lena’s breath stick in her throat, thickened with sudden tears. Kara melts back into her, absorbing the slow tremors that overtake Lena.

Lena drowned. Nothing would change that. Anyway Kara looked at it, she didn’t save Lena. Lena survived, but Kara still failed. Now Lena would live the rest of her life with the memories of that afternoon, knowing that Kara wasn’t there when she needed her most.  

There’s just enough room for Kara to perch on the side of the bed. Soon, she lowers herself onto the mattress until she’s lying next to Lena, mindful of the tubes and wires but sharing Lena’s desperate need for contact. Kara wipes her eyes and nose as Lena turns her head into Kara’s shoulder. She sighs, content, her breath warm against the skin of Kara’s chest. Kara's lips quiver as presses a kiss to Lena’s forehead, smoothing her hair away from her face. Lena smells of skin and antiseptic, and the heady scent of her alone.

“I love you, Lena.”

There’s no response. Lena has already fallen back to sleep, eyes still damp. Kara wraps her arms tighter around her, and lets the whoosh and crackle of Lena’s breathing wash over her, metered by the tempo of her heartbeat. The rest of the world fades away, and the warmth of Lena’s body heat slowly steals over Kara, edging out the echoes of the Phantom Zone until all that’s left is life, and hope, and love.

* * *

Morning dawns in shades of pink and purples outside the window. Kara blinks awake, nose tickled by strands of dark hair caught between her cheek and pillow. Lena still sleeps, head pillowed on Kara’s shoulder, her breaths congested but as steady. Lena’s body heat melts Kara’s muscles. Nothing can compel her to rise now.

Gingerly, Kara traces a finger along the edge of Lena’s cheek, pushing aside the long strands that had shifted to partially cover her face. She can see the bruises more vividly now, and the cuts and scrapes that mark her skin. Still, Lena’s features are peaceful as ever, the anguish of the night before smoothed away by sleep.

"Love you,” Kara murmurs again. She closes her eyes, pressing her nose deeper into Lena’s hair. Lena hums, the first sign of wakefulness after a long night. “Lena?”

“I can't understand you,” Lena croaks. She nuzzles closer into Kara’s neck, fingers curling into the fabric of her shirt. From here Kara can see the dried blood still flecked in curve of Lena’s ear, evidence of her damaged eardrums.

Lena clears her throat, which shifts into a cough that makes her grimace, a whimper in her throat. When it passes, Lena sags against Kara, wheezing sharply. They breathe together, in and out, until Lena regains her breath. Kara considers rising to find a nurse, but holds fast when Lena’s arms tighten around her waist.

“I love you,” Lena murmurs, low and gentle.

They lay there, for moments, minutes, hours. The sun creeps higher, finally peeking over the horizon, just a glimmer between buildings, adding gold to the pastels of blue and purple. Kara stays until the nurses come and kick her out for rounds and vitals. Kara stays in the hallway until they’re done, ignoring their suggestion to get coffee, or breakfast. This time, she isn’t going anywhere. This time, she ignores Alex’s text when it buzzes against her hip, refusing to open the door that might need Supergirl to step through. This time the only greater good that matters is the woman in the next room, surrounded by doctors, shaken and hurting.

This time, Supergirl can wait-- Kara Danvers isn’t going anywhere.


End file.
